Cafferty: Palin is “Pathetic”
I think you can look at Jack Cafferty’s evident disdain for Sarah Palin as emblematic of the cyclical decline of the conservative coalition over the past couple of decades. I first got to virtually know Cafferty when he was a long-time local news reporter and anchor on WPIX-11 in New York City. There, and after his shift over to CNN, his persona is very much that of a working class outer boroughs type. The kind of guy who voted for Rudy Giuliani and, crucially, for Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s. Which is to say that when Reagan divided the country between decent, white, normal Americans on the one hand and a rag-tag bunch of racial minorities and effeminate elites on the other, the Jack Cafferties of the world were supposed to be (and largely were) on the “real Americans” side of the line. The modern conservative coalition still draws the same lines, but draws the “real America” circle more narrowly — defines it as a kind of self-conscious hickdom that construes Cafferty as a citified elite.
Or, to put it another way, Archie Bunker didn’t get around on a snowmobile cruising from moose hunt to moose hunt.
41 Responses to “Cafferty: Palin is “Pathetic””
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September 26th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Yea, I remember Cafferty on WPIX. I don’t think the crew there ever really recovered after he left, although Mr. G is still money (I want his haircut!)
September 26th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I never thought I would share a reaction to a Sarah Palin speech in quite the same way as Kathleen Parker over at the National Review. But I mute Sarah in cringing embarrassment too. But then I’m supposed too. I suspect Palin-regret will continue to dog the McCain campaign.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I love how Cafferty just shoots down Blitzer’s attempt to spin this. “She’s cramming a lot of information in there/There’s no excuse for that” Talk about BS.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I remember him from WNBC cuz I’m 39!
Cafferty would still be one of the white good people if Bush wasn’t so horrible. I can guarantee he voted for Bush in 2000. I’m sure he was horrified by the Clenis blow job. There are too few of honest Reagan Dems though.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Force yourself to read this. Please, really pay attention to Palin’s mind at work.
Couric: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend 700 billion dollars helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas, and groceries, allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy rather than helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?
Palin: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation, the bailout is a part of that.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
If “Real Americans” can’t handle Cafferty, then I’m proudly an Unreal American.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
“Please, really pay attention to Palin’s mind at work.”
Okay, I’ve got two problems with that. Palin’s mind? Does such a thing even exist? At work? Assuming that Palin does have a mind, it doesn’t seem to be at work. I think most people could pull off a better interview on a thousand mics of LSD. That’s more than ten normal doses, by the way.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Considering that McCain’s campaign operatives are running Alaska these days, if they want to dump Palin without looking too bad they get one of the clammed-up witnesses to say Palin fired Moneghan because of her brother-in-law. McCain sadly says Palin lied to him during the extensive and grueling vetting and replaces her.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
As MY said before, she’s obviously hitting the talking points hard at night, but doesn’t have the background knowledge to be able to pull it together in conversation. Frankly, any habitual reader of Time or The Economist would have been better prepared for interviews than Gov. Palin.
It’s been painful watching the GOP reps on the news shows these last few weeks: sticking hard to the same “she’s qualified” talking points, delivered with the smiling grimace of the Enzyte Guy.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Also pathetic: Wolf Blitzer. Seriously.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Matt’s point is solid, and it’s why the “culture war” is no longer really a winning proposition for the Republicans. They’ve defined their cultural coalition too narrowly, and the standards of purity are such that they don’t have a lot of ways to expand it.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Jack Cafferty has a sense of stature to him that makes what he said much harsher than anything Keith Olbermann could lob at Palin.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Comment filler…
Before moving to Channel 11, he was the 5:00 anchor on 4 WNBC.
…the more you know!
September 26th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
“his persona is very much that of a working class outer boroughs type. The kind of guy who voted for Rudy Giuliani and, crucially, for Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s. “
We won back the Cafferties of the electorate nationally in ‘92, and we’ve kept ‘em. Kerry won Nassau and Suffolk counties in ‘04, for example.
Locally, the Cafferties of the electorate voted Giuliani, but they still vote Bloomberg today too.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Good for Cafferty to tell it like it is.
Wolfie still has blobs of W’s cum in his beard. He’s hedging, thinking the GOP just might get re-elected and he wants to keep his warm place to have a dump.
Its fun to watch Palin’s mug while the question is being asked, try it with the sound off. The hamster wheel is turning frantically, scrolling through the talking points until one in boldface comes up.
Her lips sometimes quiver and she flicks her tongue to moisten them. Major dry mouth I think, all classic anxiety symptoms.
My fave was when she said, “I’ll get back to ya!” You could see the relief in her face and hear it in her voice that one more question was done with. She looked like she really wanted to get out of there, bad!
September 26th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
remember, the palin party has also drawn the circle of tribal acceptability so tightly that it keeps out “israelites” who are responsible for the corruption of the banking industry, but will luckily be replaced by real christians.
this woman is happy to be blessed by a grade-a antisemite. before sucking up inanely to peres.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
“Wolfie still has blobs of W’s cum in his beard.”
Dude, why?
September 26th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
It’s not just the outer-borough guys peeling away from the GOP coalition. Here, via Andrew Sullivan:
They’re cracking apart.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I think you’ve nailed something here, Republicans have always liked the guys who acted more “Butch” than effeminate. Ronald Reagan wearing a set of his Hollywood chaps (and probably nothing else below) is probably the Republican ideal.
Look at George Bush looking so handsome on his “Crawford Estate” (Oh I’m sorry, the press calls it a ranch but I never see any cows there, so get it confused with the Estate of a guy who grew up with silver spoon jammed firmly in mouth), that has to get BOTH the men AND women of the Republican party a little warm in the loins.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Ditto #9. Any of my Republican relatives could have handled those questions better, even after a couple of bourbons.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
The real question is why don’t we have somebody like Jack Cafferty moderating the debates? Gwen Ifill? Tom Brokaw? Come on.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Couric had a genuine look of bewilderment/concern on her face during that response.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
right wrote: “The real question is why don’t we have somebody like Jack Cafferty moderating the debates? Gwen Ifill? Tom Brokaw?”
I believe Gwen Ifill is actually supposed to moderate the VP debate, assuming it ever happens.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
The corollary of that: the only New Yorker the Palin wing of the Republican Party is willing to accept is Rudy Giuliani.
September 27th, 2008 at 2:01 am
I remember Jack Cafferty from when I was in high school outside of Des Moines, Iowa. He was the anchor on the local station for years. When I moved to NYC after I finished college, there he was again. I’ve always liked the guy. Guess he reminds me of the midwest though I have no idea where he is from.
September 27th, 2008 at 3:27 am
I’m at the point where I feel sorry for the woman. She should not have been put in this position. She should be allowed to discreetly slip away, and perhaps hide with Steve Bartman. When she finally cracks under the strain and becomes a national spectacle, that will be just one more thing to blame on John McCain.
September 27th, 2008 at 9:46 am
She’s like a character on ‘The Office’. A new character. The one that pretends to know, anything, but doesn’t.
September 27th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I’m still voting for her. I mean, LOOK AT THAT BODY! LOOK AT THAT DELICIOUS RACK SHE HAS! I just want to DO HER! She gets my VOTE and maybe a little more!
September 27th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Here’s a nice tribute to Sarah Palin…
September 27th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
first got to virtually know Cafferty when he was a long-time local news reporter and anchor on WPIX-11 in New York City. There, and after his shift over to CNN, his persona is very much that of a working class outer boroughs type.
I fear Matt may be too young to really . . .well, know what he’s talking about here.
In fact Cafferty had no schtick on WPIX-11. Much less Lunch Bucket Regular Joe From Da Outer Boroughs. He was best known for reading the news and engaging in light banter before the the regular 6:00 local news on a show called ‘Live At Five’ with the likes of Sue Simmons and Carol Jenkins.
Simmons and Jenkins are African-American women so Jack was sort of The White Guy. (This was before Asians and Latinos were really represented on New York local news in any great numbers. There was another white guy, too, at times, but I fear his name escapes me. He was even more Ted Baxter.)
Cafferty is from Illinois, I believe, and didn’t seem especially ethnic or New York or anything. He was just, you know, a white guy in a suit. But competent. Intelligent. Gracious. Medicore to good. If anything he came across as considerably more whitebread than the city (or even suburbs) of that era.
The curmudgeon act came later with the move to CNN. He was just genial, polite, professional and bit lightweight when he was a New York anchor.
I imagine the shocking success of no-talent Bill O’Reilly spurred him on, but O’Reilly at least was from Long Island and a faux-mook from the get-go.
When he was in NY Cafferty just came across as nice, fairly intelligent, good looking white man in a suit doing local news. This in a city that was both considerably more ethnic and working-class than his persona.
Ah, how things change!
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